Never Going Back

What a damn night it’s been! Just a few days before Halloween, and I’m downtown at the precinct. I should be at home, watching movies but no, I’m being escorted into an interrogation room by a tiny cop! I bet he’s new. He looks too little to be out there fighting crime, paperwork ass.

“It’s cold in here, y’all got any blankets or do I have to freeze in here like a criminal?”

“I’m sorry but I’m not for certain ma’am… Can I can you hot tea or coffee?”

I let out a long, and dramatic sigh.

“Yes, please. I’ll take some tea with a couple packets of sugar. Thank you”

A few moments later, in walks what looks like my one true love; a gorgeous detective! A little over 6 feet tall, milk chocolate complexion, pretty teeth with a clean cut beard that actually connects! He had waves that’ll make my exes jealous of and OOH he smelled amazing. I think my future husband damn near fell into my lap! I need to pick my lip up and stop staring... I also need to make sure that he’s straight and single-single. And that’s that.

Detective Walsh says to me, “I know this may be difficult for you, I can imagine how traumatic of a night it’s been. But could you please walk me through what happened tonight? Being a key witness, your statement could mean a lot in building a strong case against Lewis and Carter."

As right as he is, the only difficulty I’m having at this very moment, is remaining professional in front of my future husband; but I can’t say that out loud. That’s not necessarily why I’m here.

I take a sip of my tea, and dive right into the details of the evening.

---

What was supposed to be a girls’ night out, quickly turned into our worst nightmare.

My friend Jackie is an entrepreneur, but I use that term loosely. She always has some crazy idea to make money but hardly sees them through. She claims this time was different because she found her ‘passion’, and just needed me to support her. So here I am, showing support for my girl, and to my surprise, she has the bright idea of little cartoon themed weed containers to show everyone. Weed containers?! That’s why I’m here! It’s my own fault for not asking any questions and just going with the flow of things. Her ‘extra’ personality actually made the presentation a little interesting but I wasn’t sold. Cartoon characters attract children; the last thing weed smokers want is their kids finding their stash and thinking it’s a toy. Having a background in law enforcement, you’d think she should be a little brighter, but I guess that’s why she got the boot in such a short time.

After her presentation, the two of us are sitting on a bench cackling because no way could she be serious! Two other friends we met up with, had just come back from a snack booth & we all start discussing our love for food. One of the girls says “The Mac to cheese ratio was perfect but I’m greedy so the portion could’ve been bigger.” We all laugh at her because it’s true, she is greedy.

As we’re talking, I hear some kids behind us rough housing. The part that annoyed me and caught my attention was how close they felt, I could literally feel the presence of one behind my neck. I turned around to see one of them fall to the ground, scraping his elbow because another kid pushed him. Now these weren’t small kids, but teenagers. Way too big to be ganging up on one kid, so I intervene.

I stood up to face him & I asked “What the hell are you doing? What’s your damn problem?!” Then I look to the kid with the scraped elbows and asked his name and if he was okay.

“I’m Lewis, and I’m good. Better now that you asked, what you getting into tonight miss lady?”

Gross. Whose child is this?! It’s time to head out. At this point, I figure they’re just acting since their in front of a bunch of women you know? So we pack up and walk away so we don’t cause a scene with these kids. Guess what happens next? They started following us on their bikes; I almost want to say they were harassing us. . Stephen fell and scraped up his elbows, while Lewis is in front and is doing the most yelling. Now I’m beyond annoyed and trying to ignore them but as pissed as I was, I kept thinking that something doesn’t seem right, the energy is way off. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I just felt in my gut that it was going to be a long night.

Before we head to the parking lot, we agree we’re all gonna go freshen up and then have a few drinks. They don’t let kids in bars so it sounded like the perfect place to be; away from these little… angels.

As Jackie and I check out a few more booths on the way out, I turn around and said to her “Something wasn’t right about those kids.” For some reason, I just couldn’t shake the feeling.

“It’s hard to explain Detective, but the energy was really weird. It’s like… I’ve never picked up such a heavy vibe from another person, especially a kid before. At the time, I figured they all had hidden agendas. All I could do was hope they wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

As she’s backing out of the parking lot, Jackie’s insisting that I’m overthinking as usual. I remind her that I used to work with kids so I have an eye for certain behaviors; kids don’t always do shit for no reason. A lot of the time, they act on emotional impulses that they can’t control. Of course she doesn’t wanna hear my analogy, so she turns up the music on me.

Maybe ten minutes out from the fairgrounds, we ride past a house with three bikes scattered across someone’s lawn. Assuming this is where the boys are, I tell Jackie to stop and turn her damn music down.

“Okay, maybe they are good? At least they’re in the house and not out fucking with people! Last thing we need is for a group of black boys getting in trouble these days!”

As soon as those words left my mouth, we hear screaming, we hear shit breaking, and a whole bunch of chaos. I look at her, she looks at me, we both look down away “shiiiieeet, I ain’t going in there!”, and we both start laughing.

I tell Detective Walsh, “Y’all know black people don’t just walk into danger! Save that shit for the melanin challenged, okay!” Walsh laughs right along with me, and with a smile he says “Truue! You’re definitely right!”

Now that I’ve got him laughing, I’m pretty sure I can get his number after this damn interview.

“Focus, woman!”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry? Oh no, I didn’t mean to say that out loud!”

Just when I thought I had fumbled my chance, Walsh says in a low voice, “It’s alright, a lot of people get nervous when giving their statements. Take your time Miss Graham, we have all night.”

I gather myself and proceed with the story.

My friend says, “no seriously, we gotta see if these kids are okay!” I’m still looking at her like she’s crazy, and she hops out and starts walking toward the porch. I can’t let her go by herself... or can I? Fuck it, next thing you WE are now walking into Lord knows whose house!

We get to the door and sees it not closed all the way so we peek in. I see elbow kid looking terrified as he’s pinned down by the same kid that pushed him earlier. The other young man, had to be the sidekick, is just pacing back and forth bumping into shit. Scary ass shouldn’t have been on this type of mission! Jackie busts in the door like she pays the damn mortgage yelling “get up off of him! What the hell y’all in here doing?!”

Now I’m froze, like a deer in headlights because I didn’t sign up for all this! If anything, I thought it was gonna be a wellness check! But I walk in to find out the lil niggas is strapped! The 2 bullies pulled their guns out aiming them at us and I felt my heart drop down to my feet.

“Detective, I was so scared. I’ve seen guns before but never had one, shit two of them pointed at me before. As scared as I was, I tried the best I could to calm them down. I was a live-in guidance counselor & nurse at a group home a few years back so I thought I may have a shot. You know, telling them to weigh their options, letting them know I can help but they didn’t wanna hear that.”

We’re taking baby steps further into the house with our hands up and I’m using the calmest voice that I can as I slowly approach the ring leader because he looks the most dangerous. He eventually lowers the gun and acts as of he’ll give it to me. I reach for it, but the sidekick aka the nervous wreck, fires his gun at absolutely nothing, no one! Again, he had no business here.

Once that shot goes off, Nervous Ned aka Carter takes off running, and Jackie goes after him. Crazy right, but she’s an ex C.O. so I didn’t even question it. I had no doubt that she couldn’t handle his scary ass. She was able to chase him just a few houses down or so before she caught up to him, and I guess that’s when she called you guys? Now it’s the 3 of us, Stephen, Lewis, and myself in this living room, all of us are clearly shaken up. And all I’m thinking is “this is why I stopped working with these bad ass kids in the first place!”

Lewis is staring dead at me, told me that I’m fucking up his plan.

I said “well what plan was that? To kill this boy? For what?!” With the gun pointed at me again, he starts walking toward me, cornering me not too far from a tall lamp I’m thinking about hitting his ass with.. I make eye contact with Stephen, and I’m trying to give him the hint to go for the kitchen door.

Lewis says, “My plan huh? To show him what’s it’s like to have to fight for something! I never had shit; people like him have it all! He walks around here like he’s better than all of us, cuz what? Cuz he lives in this nice ass house & his family got a lil money?!”

He turns to Stephen who was trying to make a run for the back door and he yells out, “Nigga you ain’t shit either!”

2 shots to his body.

Lewis tosses the gun at my feet and he just stands there like nothing happened. I’m no shrink, but I’d bet money on the idea that he thought he had removed himself from the scene. He was there physically, but his face was so emotionless, he gave me psycho vibes. He sat in a corner and didn’t move one bit, it’s like he felt that his job was done & he was at peace with what he had done.

Still in shock, I try to tend to Stephen but first, I get the gun off the floor with my scarf, and put it in my coat. I run to the kitchen to grab towels & try to put pressure on the wound that I can actually see. He’s crying, hyperventilating, & he yells out “Miss G., please don’t let me die!”

It was at that moment, I realized why he was ‘bothering’ us. I know this young man. He was a kid in my group home a couple years back and remember him being placed with a family just before I left. I swore to protect him and all the other boys no matter what, and he knew that. He recognized me & literally came to me for help.

I turned my head to look at Lewis, who was now sitting in a fetal position by the window. Maybe hearing all the sirens, made it real for him and he finally realized what the hell was actually happening. I saw the paramedics outside so I flagged them in, they got Stephen on a gurney and out of the house in no time. .

I go sit across from Lewis, I’m trying to look him in the eyes and he starts crying. First bit of emotion he’s shown since pulling the trigger a few moments ago. Before I could figure out any words to say to him, the police came in & grabbed him. I asked for an evidence bag, and placed the gun inside & sealed it myself before turning it over to them. Now here we are.

Now there’s a long and almost awkward moment of silence. I’m staring at the table, the detective is staring at me, resting his head on his hand.

With tears rolling down my face, I look up and say to him, “That’s what happened. Even though Lewis definitely pulled the trigger and I may not be the most qualified to say this, but, he needs help. A psych evaluation may be a good idea.”

He doesn’t say anything, he just keeps looking at me and slides me a box of tissues.

“Can I ask you something.. just one question. Did Stephen make it? Could you tell me?”

To be continued...